Francesca's Kitchen by Peter Pezzelli Page B

she backed the car out of the driveway, and tore off down the road.
    â€œNow remember,” she told her two children a short while later, when she pulled the car up to the school’s front door, “you’ll have someone new staying with you today until I come home. Please try to be nice to her. Be polite. Especially you, Penny. Got it?”
    â€œYeah, sure,” said Penny, stepping out of the car.
    â€œAnd that goes for you too, mister.”
    â€œYou know me, Mom,” said Will, dragging his backpack behind him as he slid out the door.
    â€œHey,” Loretta called after them as they began to walk away. “Don’t I get a kiss from either of you anymore?”
    â€œWhen you get home, Mom,” Will called back, waving over his shoulder.
    Loretta watched until the two of them were safe inside before tearing off again down the road. With any luck, she would be only fifteen or twenty minutes late for work.

CHAPTER 12
    H ad it not been for the Snickers bar in her desk drawer, Loretta would have eaten nothing at all at lunchtime. Her head was banging and her stomach growling, but she had no time to eat anything more substantial; having arrived late that morning, she was behind in her work and needed her lunch break just to catch up. With just about everyone else gone to lunch, it was quiet enough for her to focus all her attention on the tasks at hand.
    Loretta worked in downtown Providence as a legal assistant in the law offices of Pace, Sotheby, and Grant. Much of her day was spent typing up and reviewing for accuracy contracts, articles of incorporation, and other such legal documents. She had discovered early on, when she was first hired, that it was a fast-paced office that demanded the antagonistic attributes of speed and attention to detail. Arnold Grant, for whom Loretta did most of her work, might forgive her for arriving a few minutes late every now and then, but he would never tolerate any diminution in the quantity or quality of her work. He was one of those bosses who was always pleasant but had no time for pleasantries. Dexter Sotheby was cut from much the same cloth. Loretta learned right away that she didn’t dare disappoint either of them.
    Bill Pace, the founding partner of the firm, was her favorite of the three. A sweet, avuncular old gentleman, he had reduced his role over the years to simply overseeing the operation and occasionally schmoozing with the clients, leaving the hands-on work to his junior partners, who were just as happy to have the amiable codger out of the way. A widower for some years, he had no children or grandchildren to occupy his days, so the office was something of a second home to him, the staff a surrogate family of sorts. That, at least, was the way that Loretta saw him, for he certainly seemed to treat her and the rest of the staff like family. Pace passed the bulk of the workweek in his office, perusing the Wall Street Journal when he wasn’t working on his putting game. On this day, as occasionally happened, a stray golf ball came rolling out of his office door and across the lobby floor, evidence that the firm’s senior partner had once again misread the cut of his office carpet. The ball caromed off the leg of a chair and rolled along the floor, its momentum slowly waning, until it finally came to rest by the wastebasket next to Loretta’s desk.
    Loretta leaned out from her cubicle and looked down the hall to his office. “Too much club!” she called out playfully to him.
    With shirtsleeves rolled up and one suspender slipping off his shoulder, Pace emerged from his office, examining the club head of a new putter he had recently acquired. He gave it a dubious look, which suggested his evaluation of it was less than favorable. The old man stopped at Loretta’s desk, rubbed his chin, and regarded the ball for a moment, noting with consternation its proximity to the wastebasket and Loretta’s legs.
    â€œLooks like